


i'll be your enemy

by itsgameover



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Established Relationship, Feelings, I don't know how to tag but I'm scared of leaving things out !, Long-Term Relationship(s), M/M, Married Couple, Porn with Feelings, cathartic sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-08
Updated: 2021-03-08
Packaged: 2021-03-15 23:41:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,278
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28572426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/itsgameover/pseuds/itsgameover
Summary: It starts with a question in the bathroom, with Minseok hesitating on the verge of not knowing what comes next and fearing for the worst.
Relationships: Kim Jongdae | Chen/Kim Minseok | Xiumin
Comments: 8
Kudos: 61
Collections: EXO Bakery - 2021





	i'll be your enemy

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Home4U, Prompt #287  
> I opened Spotify and pressed play on my emotional songs playlist and Be Your Enemy grabbed my hand so tenderly before whispering "you know you want to write me..." and so I did.  
> Thank you to the mods for holding this round and to my delightful hype friend who kept saying 'this is so good!' repeatedly.  
> Thank you to you, the reader, hope you enjoy this fic as much as I enjoyed writing it <3

“How long has it been since we made love?”

The question catches him off guard. Minseok freezes halfway through applying cleansing foam to his face, continues a second later, a bit more mechanically. Jongdae is on the other sink, staring at the mirror as the time on his phone counts down the minutes until he has to take off his peeling mask. He seems lost in thought, pensive, black eyes focused on the reflection in the large mirror. 

“A month, I think,” it’s his answer. He doesn’t exactly remember it, but he thinks it was a few days after his birthday and they were tipsy. 

Jongdae hums, the bell of his phone tells him it’s time to wash his face. Minseok rinses off the cleansing foam and washes his hands thoroughly before grabbing the toner and the cotton pads from his side of the bathroom. 

“I thought it was less,” he says while they are washing their faces for the last time. Minseok hands a clean towel to Jongdae, they barely make eye contact. 

There is some sort of certainty in the way they stare at each other though, walking out of the bathroom with heavy steps, neither wanting to be the first one to hit the bed. So they wander around for a moment. Minseok walks to the shelves to pick a book, spends an abnormally large time deciding between a book he only read once and his favourite novel, he then turns to the kitchen where he meets Jongdae who is pouring water slowly, almost drop by drop, in a tall glass. 

Each walks to their side of the bed, slowly, hesitantly, watching the dark navy blue sheets as if they were made of some dangerous material, of something that would burn them if they touched it, of something sacred that they shouldn’t violate. 

The first one to sit is Jongdae, turning his back on Minseok as he sets the alarm for the following morning. 

Minseok scoffs, “Do you want to… now…”

“If it’s by compromise it’s not making love, Minseok,” Jongdae answers, dryly, looking at him over his shoulder, shrugging before he dives under the sheets. “I just want to sleep. Goodnight.”

“Goodnight,” Minseok says, watching as the right side of the room goes grim with Jongdae’s lamp turning off. 

He sits on the bed, turns off his own lamp and watches the silhouette of the man he adores fade as he falls asleep. He wonders if he should say something else, dreams of a black and white bird flying away, escaping his hands, never to come back. It makes him fear for the worst.

The next few days are silent, too silent. There is a growing tension between them whenever they sit in the same room. It’s not the tension that pulls two people together, not the tension of a body wanting a body, of a heart in desperate need of the burning love someone else possesses. It feels like a tension of despair and fear, of harrowing loneliness in a room that used to hold so much love.

It’s the tension of a string, about to break. 

It paralyzes Minseok. 

Some nights Minseok stays a little bit longer in the office, checking the clock to purposely miss Jongdae’s arrival, to miss his bedtime routine, to miss his sleep time. He arrives at a cold home with turned off lights, no leftovers in the oven or the fridge, a dirty plate sitting on the edge of the sink and a glass of wine, half-empty.

Other nights, Jongdae is the one to arrive late, so late in fact that Minseok fears the worst is about to happen. He’ll get a call one day, midday, right as he is having lunch, and someone will say that they saw Jongdae with this person or that other, and Minseok will have to swallow it and pretend he doesn’t know until Jongdae himself tells him, probably with divorce papers on the side. 

Minseok pretends he doesn’t think that Jongdae’s shirt looks a little bit messed up when he comes back, that he doesn’t smell alcohol on him. 

One night, Jongdae doesn’t come home. He just doesn’t, altogether. Minseok texts him to ask if he is okay and the only answer he gets is a miniscule ‘yes’ that weighs like the world on his shoulders. 

The next morning, Jongdae is in the breakfast bar, nursing a half-empty coffee mug. 

“I wasn’t with anyone,” he says, unprompted, as Minseok opens the fridge. “I just wanted you to know that I am not cheating on you,” Jongdae sounds so assured, so… earnest. He shakes his head from side to side, eyebrows furrowed tightly, “I would never do that to you. I respect you too much.”

“Ok,” Minseok serves a glass of milk for himself, sitting across Jongdae “I never thought you were,” it’s a lie, but he feels he can’t admit what he feared in the long night between a last text message and the morning lights.

The environment is cold, partly because Jongdae hasn’t turned on the heating, partly because both of them refuse to look into each other’s eyes after that initial exchange. It feels like the ice may never break, like the harbor is still far away and the ship’s engine has run out of fuel, like Minseok will never again hear Jongdae’s voice. It breaks his heart to be a coward and refuse to be the first one to talk. 

There is silence between them, a growing tension in the red string of fate tying their pinky fingers together. What if it breaks? What if it’s torn apart by another power, another soul? What if they were never meant to be in the beginning and they just kept the act for too long, so long that both of them believed it?

Jongdae sniffles, Minseok’s eyes widen. 

“Are you ok?” he asks, coming to realize Jongdae’s eyes are full of tears ready to spill. 

“Fucking no,” Jongdae answers, looking away, swallowing loudly. Minseok hopes he can swallow his pride. 

“Yell at me if you want,” he whispers, feeling like he is doing the wrong thing but if it can help them… “say all the things you want to say, I’ll take it. Don’t swallow it, say it even if it’s painful”

Jongdae gives him a long side glance, like he is hesitating between his pride and his need to scream his pain. This is not the Jongdae he remembers, the one who was tough with the world but wore his heart on his sleeve when it came to his love. This is a Jongdae who has grown cold, who has something hidden inside his chest, who says he hasn’t cheated on Minseok and Minseok believes him… to a certain extent. 

He won’t question him, however, will save up his doubts, his fear, and listen.

“We are such different people now,” he mutters “than what we were when we fell in love.” Jongdae looks around the room, looks at the window and the view of the city it offers, looks at his coffee mug and at Minseok’s hands, then his lips, then his eyes. He takes a swig of cold coffee and continues. “We have grown apart and some days I’m afraid you will never come back to me.”

“Some days I hate you,” the confession is like an arrow shot through Minseok’s open heart, but he doesn’t let it show, just looks ahead, pretends it doesn’t burn. “I hate that you are so happy, I hate that you didn’t notice we grew apart, I hate that that makes me think you hate me and you have found someone else.”

“Some days I don’t know if you love me. Worse, I don’t know if I love you,” his voice breaks, the tears fall, Minseok slides the roll of paper towels towards him, pretends he doesn’t see Jongdae rip through it and turns around to dry his tears. 

“I love you,” Minseok assures, “and I know you love me”

“No you fucking don’t! You don’t know because you haven’t been here,” he puts his right hand over his heart, squeezing the fabric of his jacket with so much strenght that Minseok fears he may rip it, “in my life, for so fucking long…. I don’t even know you.”

“You do know me,” Minseok furrows his brow, desperate to get him to understand that those are ghosts, shells of ideas that are trying to push them away, to put an ocean between them when they have always had bridge “you know my favourite type of coffee, my routines, my favourite sweater and my favourite movie, you know what makes me cry the most, you know my secrets, you know my bank account password!” he laughs, a nervous vicious type of fear seeping under his voice “You know me, Dae, you do.” 

Jongdae looks like he will say something, like he will reply something dangerous and cruel. He bites the inside of his mouth, then stands up and storms out of the kitchen and into the bedroom, smashing the door behind him, a hurricane in a small body. Minseok fills a glass with clear cold water and takes it in his hands, walking behind Jongdae and knocking on the door with the hope he somehow opens.

Mere moments later, Jongdae does open the door… and he grabs Minseok by the collar of his pajama’s shirt, pulling him towards him and then pushing him against a wall, harsh enough to knock the breath out of him. Before he can even react, Jongdae’s lips are on Minseok’s own, harsh and rough and desperate. 

“I hate you,” he mutters when they part, breathless, chest heaving, “I hate you so much,” and he dives forward once more. Minseok’s hands react before him, grabbing Jongdae’s waist, pushing away his leather jacket, sneaking under his shirt, fingertips begging for more as they slide over burning hot skin, as they wander past the waistband of Jongdae’s black jeans. 

Jongdae takes off Minseok’s shirt, takes his breath away, takes his thoughts out for a wild ride, takes and takes and takes, like he has always done. Like they have done a thousand times before in their early 20s but now in their late 30s, still angry and desperate and wanting to do something out of pure spite, out of a desire to do what they have been told they should never do. 

Sex is sacred, is love, is patient and kind. But when have they played by someone else’s rules? Even in times of confusion and strainment, they don’t act like it’s expected. 

Minseok will be Jongdae’s enemy, will let him play the part of the angry man taking something Minseok gladly gives to him each and every time, because in love or in hate, they belong to each other. The tiny string around their pinky fingers may stretch until it’s almost invisible, tension so high it may feel like it’ll break at any given moment, but it doesn’t break. It grows stronger. 

Jongdae cries as he comes, hovering over Minseok in the large mattress that was a wedding gift, so many years ago. The bed frame creaks when he crumbles, elbows giving up as his facade collapses, and Minseok catches him, like he always does, ready to cushion Jongdae’s falls, emotional or physical or both. Jongdae hides his face in the crook of Minseok’s neck, sobbing desperately, chest heaving uncontrollably. 

Minseok pets his hair, threads his fingers through the thick strands of raven black, whispers sweet nothings as he watches Jongdae come down from his high of sentiment and sensation, breath evening slowly, inhaling and exhaling, sniffling a bit as he rises on his elbows. 

“I’m sorry, Seok,” he whispers, voice broken and Minseok smiles. 

“I’m sorry too, Dae,” he puts his hands around Jongdae’s waist, grabs tight as if he might vanish if he doesn’t hold him properly “I should have been more attentive to you, I should have known how you felt, I should have asked.”

“I don’t hate you,” Jongdae assures, one knee on each side of Minseok’s hips, grabbing the navy blue sheets to cover their bodies, entangled together until eternity comes to pick them apart “I love you, so much, I was so afraid of losing you that I… I… couldn’t bear with it.”

“I know,” Minseok grabs Jongdae’s hand, the one where his golden wedding ring rests, and presses a kiss to the all too familiar metal, looking up into Jongdae’s dark velvet eyes, “I love you too. I promise to be there for you, more than ever, and to do my best for you to never feel alone again.”

“I don’t feel alone right now,” his lover says, leaning forward to rest his head on Minseok’s torso. This, this eternally gorgeous man, this temperamental and voluble man, this passionate soul, this hurricane in a wine glass, this is what he married, this what he loves, this is what he will always love. 

When the night comes, Minseok makes sure to do his night time routine twice as slowly, making time in between each step to hear Jongdae’s anecdotes, to hear him laugh when he tells him a stupid joke, to ask him what they should have for lunch the following day, to ask if he has something he wants to say before they go to bed, to tell Jongdae what bothers him. 

He presses a kiss to Jongdae’s lovely lips before diving under the sheets to hold him, sleeping with his head pressed to a body that smells of rose water and eternal sunrises, pressed to the one he never wants to lose. 


End file.
